What’s the game?

I first saw one of these adverts at the beginning of the summer. It was scrawled onto a piece of cardboard torn from a box and tied to a lamp-post with string and I thought “they have got to be kidding”. Since then this slightly smarter one has appeared in a similar place and now I have seen a more detailed one stuck to the door of a car which adds “Up to full market value paid. Fast, reliable service. No agent fees.”.

Is this some sort of scam or is it they just don’t like estate agents? At a guess I would say they they were exploiting people who are having trouble meeting their mortgage but I will be glad to be reassured that they are above board.

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on 2 Sep 2011 at 17:05 by Rick and is filed under Miscellaneous.
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Have you seen the following circular that’s doing the rounds in Penzance and St Just? A bit nasty in its tone, perhaps, but still very funny!

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PRIZE AWARDED TO P.A.WILKINS & CO, ST. JUST

This is a circular to agents and businesses in the St Just and Penzance areas. Please circulate if possible.

P A Wilkins and Company have won a prize for the quality of their marketing material.

The judges noted that the following features have been present in every property description that the company has ever issued:

1) always starting with adjectival phrases including either “Attractive” or “Deceptively spacious”

2) using the word “attractive” an average of 3.7 times per property

3) referring to the sun, usually in the phrase “sunny aspect”

(it was admiringly noted that rather than say “east” or “west”, the company invariably chose to employ the impressive phrases “taking advantage of the morning sun” and “taking advantage of the afternoon sun”)

4) omitting any reference to price on the front page

5) omitting any reference to the number of bedrooms on the front page

6) almost always choosing not to use apostrophes or hyphens, preferring such forms as “oil fired”, “wood panelled”, and “doctors surgery”

(having installed information-collection software on the company’s computer system, the judges are informed that the reason that the company’s spelling is usually correct is because a spellchecker is used, such use being the default setting on its word-processing software)

7) using the email address “pawilkins.stjust@btconnect.com”, when it would be extremely easy to use one such as “sales@pawilkins.co.uk” if only a proper software company were employed to provide computer services, or someone at the company asked any 12-year-old on the street “How can we get a nice email address?”

The judges are fully aware that semi-literacy is the norm among estate agents, and not only in areas were freemasonic cockiness (“we make money doing what we’ve always done”) is the most rife.

But there was unanimous agreement that P A Wilkins and Company have performed marvellously in scraping the very bottom of the barrel.

The prize is receipt of the coveted Semi-Literate Morons of the Year Award 2011, to be awarded at the Provincial Grand Lodge of Cornwall by the Provincial Grand Master.